Gift will create the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute, advancing emergency and inpatient care and medical research and education

NEW YORK(Sep 18, 2013)

NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center has received a transformative gift from The Mortimer D. Sackler Foundation to create the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute in support of neurological and neurosurgical patient care and innovative medical research and education. The gift was announced at an inauguration celebration yesterday.

With the gift, the hospital will renovate the second floor of its Greenberg Pavilion, the main inpatient facility, and the sixth floor of its Starr Pavilion, to create a hospital-within-a-hospital with the most advanced medical technology for the diagnosis and treatment of all neurosurgical and neurological patients. By centralizing all neurosurgical and neurological services in one location, collaboration between providers will be enhanced, improving the coordinated delivery of multidisciplinary care, efficiency, continuity of care, and the quality of care experienced by the patient. "The institute will bring together all of the various specialists who have expertise relating to the patient's condition," said Dr. Matthew E. Fink, co-director of the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute, neurologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell and chairman of the Department of Neurology at Weill Cornell Medical College. "It's critically important that all doctors taking care of these patients are located together in the same area of the hospital and have frequent opportunities for collaboration and consultation. That makes a tremendous difference in the care of the patient." Neurologists and neurosurgeons will collaborate with a range of specialists, including anesthesiologists, emergency medicine physicians and trauma and other surgical specialists, psychiatrists, rehabilitation medicine experts, radiologists, and internal medicine specialists and subspecialists.

The gift, which includes a new advanced model MRI machine, will transform inpatient care for brain and spinal injuries and disease at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and further advance the medical center's research in those areas. "The Department of Neurological Surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell has a long and distinguished history in translational research, bringing advances from the lab to the patient bedside," said Dr. Philip E. Stieg, co-director of the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute, neurosurgeon-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell and chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College. "By fostering partnerships between neurological surgery and neurology and between researchers and clinicians, the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute will accelerate and enhance this process."

"The Sackler Brain and Spine Institute will be transformative in the way we care for our neurological and neurosurgical patients," said Dr. Steven J. Corwin, CEO of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. "We are very proud that our neurology and neurosurgical programs are currently among the top-ranked in the country, and this new, state-of-the-art, hospital-within-a-hospital will build upon this foundation of excellence and bring a new level of expertise and continuity of patient care."

The gift also establishes the Sackler Brain and Spine Institute Endowment, which will be used to support the recruitment and retention of preeminent physicians, surgeons, clinicians, and scientists to further the work of the institute and provide research grants and fellowships to scientists and clinicians.

NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center

NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, located in New York City, is one of the leading academic medical centers in the world, comprising the teaching hospital NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical College, the medical school of Cornell University. NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell provides state-of-the-art inpatient, ambulatory and preventive care in all areas of medicine, and is committed to excellence in patient care, education, research and community service. Weill Cornell physician-scientists have been responsible for many medical advances — including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer; the synthesis of penicillin; the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S.; the first clinical trial for gene therapy for Parkinson's disease; the first indication of bone marrow's critical role in tumor growth; and, most recently, the world's first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital also comprises NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian/Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital, NewYork-Presbyterian/Westchester Division, NewYork-Presbyterian/The Allen Hospital, and NewYork-Presbyterian/Lower Manhattan Hospital. NewYork-Presbyterian is the #1 hospital in the New York metropolitan area and is consistently ranked among the best academic medical institutions in the nation, according to U.S.News & World Report. Weill Cornell Medical College is the first U.S. medical college to offer a medical degree overseas and maintains a strong global presence in Austria, Brazil, Haiti, Tanzania, Turkey and Qatar. For more information, visit Weill Cornell Medical College.